


Moonlight.

by snarknoir19



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Campfires, Dialogue, F/M, Moving On, Regret, Relationship Discussions, Stars, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-02-23 10:20:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23009950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarknoir19/pseuds/snarknoir19
Summary: It isn’t a goodbye, but something is over.
Relationships: Finn/Rey (Star Wars), Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 19
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

“It’s just...different now Rey.“

He’d said that to her wistfully, almost tiredly, as they stood on the riverbank in the last full days of summer. 

She did not want different. 

The campfire popped sending glowing embers spiraling upward into the night air and she watched them lose themselves against the brighter stars. 

There was too much space left behind in the silence after he spoke and she knew that whatever he told her next would change everything they were and would ever become. 

And she could feel it coming. Building like sandstorms on the horizons of Jakku. Vast, looming, swallowing everything. There was never an escape.

She looked at him then, this kind, thoughtful man. Watched him in firelight profile, while he worked it through. 

He was about to speak now and all she wanted was to scream, to stop him from saying the ending words because if he didn’t let them out, if he didn’t speak them into being then they could stay like this. Just like this right here, as they were right now and they could just go on being Finn and Rey.

Her weight shifted onto one foot. Her hands clasped, fidgety, before her. And she reached for his hand because...he hadn’t...he hadn’t reached for hers and he was supposed to do that. He was supposed to take her hand. Taking his in both of hers she felt the prick of tears and the ache in her chest. 

She sensed it. This teetering feeling like she was on the crumbling edge of an endless pit. 

He looked so very earnest in the moonlight. 

She imagined him holding a child. Their child. And she couldn’t see and had to wipe her eyes. 

“Rey, I can’t begin to tell you, to fully describe for you, how much I felt from the very first day we met. I can’t regret anything.”

And Rey was beginning to realize that a platform was crumbling away beneath her feet. She hadn’t even realized she’d been standing on it all along. 

“Rey,” he blew out a heavy breath. “even now just saying your name, it just fills me up inside, I just feel happy, although that’s not the best word, ‘at peace’ maybe, when we’re together. And I don’t want it to. I don’t want to feel this for you because I know you can’t feel it back and that’s not fair to either of us.”

The campfire was too small. The cool night was moving through the space between them. He would give her his jacket and she would cry silently at the temporary warmth. 

“You know, it’s crazy, Poe called me Finn first, its true. A real name and not just a designation; all sterile and impersonal. It was the idea that I could have such a thing. 

“But it wasn’t Poe’s place to name me, the way we name pets or property or children. 

“I accepted the name because it was novel. But I only made it real when I introduced myself to you. 

“With you, Rey. You were the first person I presented myself to as just Finn. I guess I came alive when I made the name real.”

She watched the firelight play across his profile and it occurred to her that she might not get to see him as an older man. 

“For a while now I‘ve been a small moon tightly orbiting a planet.

“I can’t imagine how suffocating that might’ve felt for you Rey. Honestly, at the same time I’m not really embarrassed about it.“ He continued to gaze out at the sky.

Everything he’s saying is in the past tense, she noted. The sinking feeling seeped to her bones. She was losing something. 

He’d been there all along but she’d been captivated by that monster instead. 

Stopstopstopstop. Please Finn just stop now and don’t kriffing say it.

And then, as though he could hear her thoughts:

“I’ve had some time to think about everything. And, I really don’t want you to think I feel anger toward you, or that I feel like you ‘owe me’ anything. You don’t. It’s not like that at all.

“I know you always got how I felt about you. And I know now that it was one sided.”

The ground was falling away beneath her. He was leaving her. 

“I’m not angry Rey. Your feelings are your feelings. I don’t get any say in that and I don’t have to understand it. And I don’t judge you. I think you are the most amazing person alive and you’re my best friend. Would I have wished for something different? Of course. But wishing doesn’t make it so.”

His sweet sad smile flashed, briefly. And she wanted to freeze the moment and drink that smile forever. 

He made eye contact with her. “I mean, I didn’t get it at first, But now? Now that some time has passed, It’s ok, I guess, or it’s getting better. I just… Suddenly I was just pulled back, Somehow, and I had a different perspective. On everything. 

“You don’t want me Rey. If we’re honest you never felt for me the way I did for you. And that is ok. It actually made it all easier when I realized it was about simple compatibility.” 

He looked at her with such sincere affection that she feared she would crumble to the ground. 

Rey drew a breath against the cold knotted feeling in her stomach. He had loved her. Finn had loved her. 

Had.

He was putting it into words now with that reverential, awed expression he gets, only now he’s recalling the past. And knowing this fact hurts more than anything she can remember. He was talking about their past. Wistful, like something remembered with fondness. 

And when she thought about a future without him there suddenly wasn’t nearly enough air.

How had she taken all of this for granted? Surely, she had to have recognized his affection. And with the deepest, burning shame, she admitted to herself that she had felt encumbered by him at times. And at the same time she had felt jealously entitled to his single minded devotion. And what had she shown him in return? Fondness. Care. A compassionate peck on the forehead to commemorate every selfless act he’d ever shown her.

And with a sharp hurt it occurred to her to wonder: Could she even feel love, lust, attraction to somebody who was only entirely good? Was there something in her that required something sinister, a touch of evil.?. How had she been so susceptible to something as vile as Kylo Ren? For whatever he had been, there was really no mystery in the end. He was what he was. He did the things that he chose to do. And she, fully aware of everything,..Everything..Had thrilled to it…… It was unspeakable, unreconcilable. She had felt drawn in by that...that thing. 

She watched Finn reach to add a stick to the flames. 

“Do you remember that star cluster you showed me that time? The one with the planet with the double moons?”

She did. She remembered every single time they shared a new wonder together. 

“And then you told me that actually, only one of the moons orbited the planet and the other one actually circled the other moon.“

She saw where this was going.

“I was longing for you while you were yearning for Kylo.

“I don’t think I’m supposed to be that little moon, Rey. Caught up in someone else’s journey. That’s not my story. I mean, look at everything I escaped from.”

The stars filled the night sky twinkling in the lonely dark void. So silent so distant. 

She felt him shift away before he spoke and the pang of longing and hurt and hollowness made it hard to breathe. 

“I want someone to look at me the way you looked at him.” And she broke. Tears spilling freely now in the darkness. She wanted to speak but nothing came. 

“I think I can find that. I want to love and be loved with that kind of intensity. The kind of single minded focus that you had for him. I won’t lie Rey, I wish it had been different.

“I will always cherish what we’ve shared. I know I can always count on your friendship.”

A fat tear slid down her cheek then and she was thankful for the darkness that shielded her. 

“I just needed you to know how I felt. You’re my best friend and I wanted you to know before I shipped out.”

He reached and squeezed her hand and she could only look at their linked fingers, feeling her tears run freely. 

He would hold someone else someday. He wasn’t hers because she had chosen someone else. It was exactly as simple as that. 

“I’m going to lead a team to the space sector we discussed in the meeting. We’ll have to get together when I’m back. The three of us.”

He wasn’t inviting her to go with him. 

They fell into silence then as Finn stirred the fire. Rey didn’t trust herself to speak. But sat numbly beside him. 

She’d left him behind and he wasn’t trying to chase her anymore. He’d come for her, she knew he would always come back for her only now it was different. He felt friendship and nothing more. And she couldn’t ask him for more. Not now. Not ever. 

They sat together in silence and watched the fire burn to embers.


	2. The echo of a touch.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Longing

Re working a piece.

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to “I’m Tired, You’re lonely” by Liza Anne and then this happened.  
> Feedback is appreciated.


End file.
